How does Bermuda compare to the world?

Over the last few months we’ve been looking at energy, in particular, how much does it cost, how do we use it, and how can we save money by using less. 

Today I want to give some thought to where the energy we consume comes from and more importantly, where is it likely to come from in the future. 

Traditionally, power in most countries has originated from power stations burning one or more fossil fuels. 

The Energy Information Administration estimated that in 2007 the mix of primary fossil fuels to generate power was 36 per cent petroleum products, 27.4 per cent, coal and 23 per cent natural gas. Non fossil fuels including nuclear, hydroelectric, geothermal, solar etc. made up the balance.

Fossil

Burning these fossil fuels released over 21 billion tonnes of the greenhouse gas Carbon Dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere significantly adding to the compounding problem of global warming. 

In addition, each of the fossil fuels had to be extracted from the earth using a variety of industrial processes that caused significant environmental damage and carried potential for truly catastrophic environmental accidents like the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. 

Once extracted each of the raw materials then had to be transported and, in the case of petroleum products, further refined using more fossil fuels, before finally being burnt at the power stations to produce the energy we ultimately consume.

Thankfully, the majority of the worlds developed nations are now working hard to gradually reduce their dependence on traditional fossil fuels and are introducing clean, renewable energy sources into their power generation mix. 

BELCO

Here in Bermuda, until very recently, we have been 100 per cent reliant on petroleum-based power generation via the BELCO power plant. 

However, in the last few years we have finally begun to see the introduction of alternative energy sources primarily in the form of solar and wind energy.

To get an idea of how well we are doing we need to take a look at the international league table of countries using solar and wind energy to supplement power generation which is produced annually by the Swiss-based ‘Solar Super State’ organization. They list 197 countries and tabulate the volumes of installed solar and wind power. 

Rather than simply giving cumulative totals for each country, which is rather meaningless due to the vastly differing sizes of individual countries, they give the totals as an installed rate per capita. This allows accurate comparisons to be made between countries with vastly different populations.

The first table shows the ranking for Solar Electric (photovoltaic) installations, shown in ‘Watts per capita’ for the top 10 countries. The second table shows the ranking for installed wind energy. 

It is interesting to see that while Germany, the acknowledged world ‘powerhouse’ of renewable energy, is ranked #1 for solar, the world’s smallest sovereign state, Vatican City, with a population of just 800 comes in at #4 with 266 watts of solar PV per head. 

In the world of wind power it is the tiny Scandinavian country of Denmark that is setting the benchmark for the rest of the world with over 700 watts of installed wind turbine capacity per capita.

While Bermuda is not included in the list of 197 countries (yet!), ,I have added them to the bottom of each table to show their relative worldwide ranking. 

I have used an estimated installed PV base of 1,179 kws and an installed wind base of 10 kws and a population of 62,500 for the calculations.  

Nick Duffy is the divisional manager for Bermuda Alternate Energy. Question or comments may be sent to [email protected]

Solar PV Capacity per capita

Wind Capacity per capita